Apropos With Reference To

WHO ARE YOU?

Your Outlook is not only anti-Vajpayee, anti-BJP, but also anti-national and pro-Pakistan. Be it Pokhran or Kargil, Admiral Bhagwat or Surinder Singh, you only see the darker side of things.
Akshay Kumar Samal,
Sambhalpur

You guys played a neat trick on us. You started off as an unbiased mag, but having netted us, your real agenda—praise for the Congress, brickbats for theBJP—has emerged.
Shanti Kurup,
Bangalore

I thought you were different. Ugh! You are just another bleeding-heart secularist andBJP-basher.
V.C. Krishnan,
Chennai

Your magazine seems to follow Harry Truman’s law: "If you can’t convince them, confuse them."
A.S. Raj,
Bangalore

The fact that you’ve survived this long is proof that the ‘India basher’ is alive and kicking. In fact, it’s made startling inroads into Indian drawing rooms. But eventually you’ll have to bite the dust like Naipaul did. Till then Bharat’s true sons and daughters will continue to project its true image: an ancient land with a rich culture, an economic workhorse and a central player in Asia and the world. You’re welcome to secede and happy Rawalpinding!
Sanjay Chawla
Massachusetts, US

Outlook makes the same mistake other English magazines make. Of concentrating only on the metros for its opinion polls and consequently getting either a wrong or a one-side picture of India and Indians. So it is with your story ‘Ungreatfuls’. Come to Gulbarga and I’ll introduce you to a group of Generationnext, which can give you lectures on India, past, present and future.
Narayanan P.S.
Gulbarga

Your magazine is rabidly anti-CPI(M). Though many of your reports may be true, they’re totally biased.
A. Mukherjee,
on e-mail

Priyanka? PM-in-waiting? But, of course, as a Congress mouthpiece....
Prasad Boddupalli,
Texas

I’ve noticed a concerted effort by BJP-friendly letter-writers to brand you asanti-BJP or anti-Hindu. What crock! It’s just a ploy to pressure you out of your objective outlook.
J.N. Chatterjee,
New Delhi

What’s common between street dogs and India’s brave, fiercely independent editors: throw them bread and they start wagging their tails
Anant Gupta,
New Delhi

Dis Really Sucks
Mr Mehta’s reference to Gladstone’s efforts to "pick up fallen women" to save their souls reminds me of an exchange between Gladstone and Disraeli. G taunted: "Mr D, you’ll end your days either on the scaffold or by venereal
disease." D retorted: "That depends, Sir, on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress."
C.P. Dyuthikar,
Bangalore

Outlook’s a lively magazine. I only wish it wasn’t so full of bleeding-heart liberals.
Vijay Kumar,
on e-mail

To be accused by both sides of the political divide as being a stooge of the other is the best compliment you can get.
Cdr A. Vishwanathan,
on e-mail

Accept my compliments on your consistently liberal and progressive outlook.
Ajay Kalhan, et al,
Mumbai

As far as my field of awareness goes, the only secular newsmagazine in India today.
Fajar Hameed,
Palakkad

O: Outrageous
U: Unworthy of reading
T: Trash-talking
L: Lousy as ever
O: Often wrong
O: Only for anti-nationals
K: Killing fair journalism
Chidanand D Bhat,
Bangalore

. . Wrong Take

O - Outstanding
U - Unputdownable
T - Topical
L - Level-headed
O - Observant
O - Outspoken
K - Knowledgeable
Basudeb Bhattacharya,
Calcutta

After reading Outlook for six months, I’ve to agree with V.S.Naipaul: "Indian press has at last begun to present India to itself."
Par Jansson,
Sweden

I thought you were not part of the herd. But where are the follow-up articles on Gujarat and Rajasthan? After a deluge of stories, there seems to be a severe drought now.
Balbhadra Rana,
Rajkot

TAKE A BOW

Heart-felt congratulations to Sandipan Deb for penning a 303-word-long sentence to describe the Kumbh Mela. It certainly matches the gigantic congregation of humans at the mela. The mega sentence can also be a good example of a complex/compound sentence in English grammar.
K.V. Rupchand,
on e-mail

Which Way To P 39?
Every week I look forward to your magazine to check if your table of contents tallies with the articles inside. Every week I fail.
K.S. Ramesh,
Courtallam, TN

Your illustrator Jayachandran is another R.K. Laxman in the making. His Mirror Image in the December 4, 2000, issue caricaturing Vajpayee’s unilateral ceasefire offer was excellent!
K.C. Sagar,
Gandhinagar

The cover page of your July 2, 2001, issue and the wordplay of Prez within the name Pervez was marvellous. Keep it up.
V.K. Gupta,
on e-mail

CUT IT OUT

Judging by the number of headlines hobbled by question marks (8) in your 9.10.96 issue, you seem to be groping for answers like us mere mortals.
M.P. Yeshwant Kumar,
Bangalore
Ed: To paraphrase Whitman, Do I contradict myself? I do. I’m large, I contain multitudes.

Wow! First the 10 best business schools in India and now India’s best restaurants. What’s next? 10 best courier companies? 10 best third umpires? 10 best parking attendants? 10 best ration shops?
Sumant Bhattacharya,
NOIDA

I just wish Arundhati would make her point using fewer words. I never get past the second or third page of her essays.
Damo Chittibabu,
on e-mail

I can’t imagine any US magazine giving equivalent space for such a searing political polemic as Arundhati Roy’s against the dam.
Patrick McCully,
California

First the Booker from Britain and now the Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters from France! I knew Arundhati Roy is a foreign agent.
Dev Kumar Vasudevan,
on e-mail

Sad and unfortunate. Probably if Mr Mehta threatens to immolate himself, Sonia might reconsider her decision to quit.
Sandeep H,
Chennai

Your Mr Clean’s New Spring on Rahul Gandhi was spread over four pages, eight photos, 315 lines, 2,590 words and 15,652 characters.Couldn’t you give half the space to cousin Varun?
Raj Bharadwaj,
Mumbai

If you disregard the advertisements and photographs, there were hardly 15 pages of reading material in your 98-page magazine! Even one news story from each state of our vast country could have given you enough material for reportage. Or did the Outlook journalists go on leave?
Prince Herbert,
Coimbatore

The American campaign against terrorism should not fail. If America fails, capitalism fails, Outlook won’t get the mindboggling number of ads and revenue it’s getting now. And Vinod Mehta will end up with another Independent on his hands.
Raghav Venkatesh,
Gulbarga

A Posteriori, We’re All Dead
The threat of an Indo-Pak N-confrontation brings to mind two old pieces of advice on what to do when an A-bomb isapproaching. The first comes from the former Soviet Union: put a sheet over one’s head and walk to the nearest cemetery, but slowly so as not to causepanic. The second, from the US, is starker: "Put your head between your legs and kiss yourposterior goodbye." Avoid war.
Zeljko Cipris,
California

How on earth can a publication purporting to be India’s premier national newsmagazine use the word ‘nigger’ in a headline? I appreciate that the piece lashes out at the anthropological narrative that has emerged in mainstream Indian media’s description of tribals in Andaman & Nicobar islands. However by using the word ‘Nigger’ so blatantly, Outlook joins hands with the very racist/colonial narrative Kai Friese has criticised.
Anna G.,
on e-mail

CRICKET

Assuming that Mohammed Azharuddin ‘underperformed’ in exchange for money and still manage to have an average of 45-plus with 22 centuries and be the highest run-getter in one-day internationals, can you imagine what his career averages would have been had he not been ‘paid’ money for underperforming? I bet it would be better than the ‘little masters’.
Suhail Rizwy,
on e-mail

To all readers who unabashedly criticised Outlook for publishing Dawood Ibrahim on its cover, where were your letters when the magazine published photographs of cricketers accused in the match-fixing scandal? Are they really any different from the mafia don?
Kavitha Hariharan,
on e-mail

I read that Rs 50 lakh, bundled in a cloth, was placed in a hundi (collection box) at the Tirupati temple. Has any Indian cricketer been there recently?
Dr Ullas Hegde,
Taiwan

Innumerology
I have been counting the increase in the number of your ad pages. When it crosses 100, I will stopsubscribing.
Ashish Khokhar,
New Delhi

GROW UP GUYS

VM’s Delhi diary was most refreshing, especially so because it succeeded in banishing politics. Can he at the same time also banish referring to "this lower middle-class Muslim boy (Mohammed Azharuddin)?".
Mani Ayer,
Chennai

Nandana Dev Sen has famous parents in Amartya Sen and Nabaneeta Dev Sen. While introducing her in Glitterati (28.8.96), why exclude her mother, a literary figure in her own right? Do children have to depend solely on their father for their identity?
Sudeshna Roy,
Calcutta

Will you stop poking your nose into the personal affairs of cricketers. Let Ganguly have 10 wives, why should it be your problem? If you can’t do any good for anybody, you don’t have a right to tarnish others’ image either.
Subhasish Maitra,
on e-mail

Ultra Modi
In Narendra Modi at last an Indian state has found a chief minister who believes in ‘scientific governance’. Converting Gujarat into a human laboratory for applying Newton’s laws and other laws of applied sciences, he has done great service to the nation. I wish Modi is honoured with the 2002 Nobel for physics.
Mohd Amir Idrees,
Lucknow

I don’t recall any article hailing a Maratha Renaissance with an exclamation mark at the end when Sachin became skipper(The Bengal Renaissance!, 13.3.00).It’s sad to see the media’s parochial indulgence when it comes to cricketers.

Rajib Kumar,
Calcutta

Why do journalists report even sports news parochially? While describing the splendid performances of five cricketers in your cover storyCricket’s New Cradle, you call them five Kannadigas. Are they not Indians?
R.P.Nadkarni,
Mumbai

You refer to Padma Lakshmi as a "South Indian beauty" (20.3.00).Why do Indian magazines never refer to any model from the north as a "north Indian bea-uty"? How is it that Bipasha Basu or Sushmita Sen are "Bengali babes", Diana Hayden’s an "Anglo-Indian beauty" but Rani Jeyraj can’t be a Tamil beauty?
Jemima Manohari,
Chennai

It was unbecoming of Vinod Mehta (Delhi Diary,21.2.96) to describe Narasimha Rao as "a wily south Indian Brahmin (experts in these matters say this is a particularly crafty species)"? It’s abysmally casteist and regionalist.
Saroja Raman,
New Delhi

I have been a regular subscriber of Outlook barring the first four or five weeks despite my 20-odd-year loyalty to the rival India Today. I have always awaited coverage of my city/state in the Diary column of your magazine but, sadly, except for one piece by aBBC correspondent in India, there has been no mention of Bhubhaneshwar or Orissa. Hope you would acknowledge our grievance and, indeed, do the needful.
D Patnaik,
Bhubaneshwar

Either replace your correspondent’s calculator or please send him to a crash course in math. Tagore wrote over 2,000 poems, not "over 1,000"; 60 plays, not "some two dozen"; 12 novels, not eight. And it’s not because they have no scores that some 2,300 of Tagore’s songs remain unsung. It’s because singers rarely deviate from the conventional repertoire of 500-odd Rabindrasangeet pieces. Finally, French composer Arnold Blake did not write music for 26 Tagore songs, he merely transcribed them into western notation.
Ananda Lal,
Calcutta

I believe Balbir Punj was once a journalist. Now he is an MP. Given his inability to understand simple words and arguments, all I can say is journalism’s gain is Parliament’s loss.
Siddharth Varadarajan,
New Delhi

Are you sure you did not violate any law when you published your cover story titled, The Law is an Ass, on outdated laws?
Premkumar B.,
Chennai

God is Back (21.8.00).
Just saw your latest issue with the cover proclaiming the return to divinity. Hey man, I never went nowhere! Where were you, old buddy! PS: Are you a long-lost cousin of Nietzsche?
Sunil Gupta,
on e-mail

Mother Teresa can now take a break.With Phoolan Devi having been canonised by the media, contestants in the Miss World and other such pageants can have a new idol to look up to.
Sunil Shibad,
Mumbai

Why do you get so excited about a divorced Smita Thackeray continuing to use her married name? And then to have quotes from her husbandabout her unsavoury character, veiled references to extramarital affairs and her unnatural proximity to her father-in-law? What’s all this fuss about, especially since women often use their married name even after the divorce simply to avoid the hassle of name change? Altogether the piece belonged more in a daytime tabloid rather than in a sober current affairs magazine. We expect better.
Anupama Sasi,
New York

In Delhi Diary (12.6.96) you wonder how Yanks make love 2.1 times aweek. Elementary, dear Watson: it’s 9 times a month, twice a week, 8 times in four weeks and a ‘bonus’ session in its last two days.
S.S.Narula,
New Delhi

Cheapskate
Can I buy only the first few pages (Letters section) of Outlook for, say, some two bucks?
Anurag Paranjape,
Bangalore

This is news. Your cover story Reading the Book of Lifedeclares that the human sperm does not have a nucleus. If found true, you may have a winning candidate for this year’s Nobel!
Dr Shivashankar,
Bangalore

Your finding in your sex survey reports that extramarital sex has gone up 3.3 times for men and 14.6 times for women in the sameperiod. Strange. I thought you needed both men and women for adultery.
R.K. Sudan,
on e-mail

OOPS!

Leap Beyond an Year: Even Homer nods! Hence this gem in your 9.7.97 issue: "He was to retire on February 31, 1997."
Bhanu K.Sampat,
Calcutta

Dear Sandipan, tsk, tsk. The Theory of Quotational Drift is at work again. The quote you attribute to Mark Mobius about shoeshine boys and the state of the stockmarket(Shoeshine and Black Ink,17.1.00) was in fact J.P. Morgan’s. Some weeks before the Great Crash, Morgan was getting his shoes shined. The shoeshine boy, after finishing, asked him, "Any tips for the stockmarket, Mr Morgan?" Morgan went back to office, called up his broker and sold his entire portfolio, saying, "When shoeshine boys start getting into the market, it’s time to get out."
Anvar Alikhan,
Mumbai
Sandipan Deb replies: Nice try! But J.P. Morgan died 14 years before the Great Crash.

Are You Gonna Go My Way?
Apropos your recommendation of the Eicher City Map. Well, it doesn’t show my house: Sangli Apartments, the only
multi-storeyed one on Copernicus Marg. My street is not too remote. It has Punjab Bhavan, Maharashtra Sadan, Haryana Bhavan, Baroda House, plus Kamani, LTG, Sriram theatres. Besides the All India Dhobi Association, we also have a permanent taxi stand—a rarehonour.
Srikanth M,
Delhi

LOOK WHO’S WRITING

Much has appeared in the press ever since Shri Bhabani Sengupta resigned from thePMO following a discussion over his appointment as OSD there by PM I.K. Gujral. A case is now being made out that Sengupta had to quit because of unreasonable and unfounded criticism by me during the Lok Sabha discussion.It’s true that I did participate in the 6.5.97 discussion, but it’s incorrect to suggest I had indulged in "McCarthyism"—as some friends of Sengupta have alleged—or that there is a "nexus" between me and "foreign office bureaucrats and intelligence officials".